Here is a very Gronk anecdote from Gronk’s high school basketball career
It involves the number 69.
Between shattering backboards on the basketball court and listing “chicks” as a hobby, Rob Gronkowski’s high school days, as recalled in a new WPRI story, seem almost a caricature of what fans would expect of the jovial New England Patriots tight end.
And yet, there is one Gronk anecdote that truly out-Gronks the rest.
As Chuck Swierski — Gronkowski’s high school basketball coach at Williamsville North High School in Buffalo, New York — told WPRI:
“So we’re playing a home game and we have 68 points – now it’s not a blowout, but it’s not a particularly close game either. So he [Gronkowski] gets fouled and goes to the free throw line. He hits the first one to get us to 69 and the place goes nuts because he’s playing into it. On his next free throw, he purposely chucks the ball off the backboard and misses so the score would stay at 69 and then runs back on defense pointing at the scoreboard.”
As Patriots fans have apparently observed, Gronkowski’s childlike affinity for the number has endured well into his professional football career.
Click over to the full WPRI retrospective on the Super Bowl-bound Patriots’ teenage years for some classic photos of Gronkowski in high school, as well as the story of the time he dunked so hard in basketball practice that he took the rim off the backboard.
